Tag Archives: stickers

Wrangling in the Chips

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That last post on what to do when getting ready for a crop has got me thinking about organization.  Actually, it has gotten me thinking more about organization–it has gotten me to DO something about it, which is an altogether different thing entirely.  While I really don’t think about myself as a sticker hoarder, I mean user, I am actually.  Case in point:

 

 

 

Ridiculous right?  But I’m guessing I’m not the only one out there organizing their stickers this way.  Hmmmm….

And so, I decided that I would find something that would work for me.  The thing is that organization, no matter how good it is, sometimes outgrows your collection of stuff.  I don’t often buy sticker letter and numbers, so this method works fine for me.  The important thing is to remember HOW your individual system works.  How do you create.  I mainly operate off of color, so my organization system, no matter what I am organizing, needs to be based around that.  Here is my miracle…I mean answer:

Isn’t it great?  The most important thing to make note of with this tote is not necessarily the built-in color system, which is fabulous, but the bottom of the tote.  You can’t really see it in this photo, but the BOTTOM of the tote e-x-p-a-n-d-s.  So key!!!  The result is that everything is laid out, organized, and easily accessible.

And now, I am so slim, so trim, and I have officially wrangled in the chips!

Can You Me How to Get to Sesame Street?

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I had a lot of fun creating this layout, even if the photos are a little old.  When I look at them and how happy he was during this visit with his Sesame Street friends, I can only smile.  And that’s how I wanted this layout to feel–joyful.

I wanted to let the photos speak for themselves and since they contained a lot of primary colors, I wanted my decoration to be a little more complementary and a little less exact.  Also, I did a couple of things that I rarely do on layouts–create my own embellishments and use a sticker.

This cutie camera is a stamped image from Lawn Fawn, one of my new favorite stamp companies.  I did a simple paper piecing with some Basic Grey paper and left over scraps.  I filled in the lens with some Glossy Accents.  (I admit I held back…when I get some GA in my hands, I can be pretty dangerous.)

This is a close up on another handmade embellishment.  I call it a button cloud.  After I had finished the layout, I wanted to add a little something to break up the frame a bit.  I had these die cut clouds from Jolee’s and since they were transparent, I put a little cardstock behind the die cut to help it show up more.  The button was an afterthought, but it was my way of keeping the transparency of the cloud without using glue, which would have been too obvious.  I sewed the button down to the cloud and added it to the layout with pop dots.

I hope we will get back there soon!

Somewhere Between Christmas and Valentine’s….

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It’s funny.  While I know us scrapbookers love our holidays (I mean, camera-required, right?), it’s always the little things, the simple photos, the small, quiet places that we find our greatest joys. I love, love, love how the everyday can give me my greatest inspiration for layouts.

I suppose I could go on and on…you know what I mean.  But this week’s post has to do with both of them–Christmas and Valentine’s–all wrapped up into one:

This mini was a Christmas present all about love–the love between my cousin and her husband.  They’ve been married for a couple of years now and are expecting their first child–a girl, they think.

Here’s to happiness.  Here’s to love.  Over the next few weeks, I’ll share a few more heart-themed projects.  Because…it just feels so darn good!

PS They loved the book. So happy that they did.

Let It Snow

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Just a quick one this time…I’m caught somewhere between a house full of colds, looming deadlines, and a few piles of laundry and other housework.  This is one of my latest projects as part of the Glue Dots Dottess team:

Sweet, right?  Sometimes you need a quick gift to give and traveling down the pre-fab aisle always gives me a bit of inspiration.  I love taking the really cheap wood items off the shelf, adding a little paint or paper to them, and seeing what I come up with.

The really special thing about this one? Using Glue Dots in a way that I’ve never used them before–not as adhesive, but as an embellishment.  Basically, I just attached each dot where I wanted it and embossed with a little powder.  Here are some step-by-step directions:

 

Supplies needed–

 

Wooden frame (from any craft store)
Acrylic paint (pure white)
Hampton Art embossing powder (sky blue)
Distress ink (Broken China)
Sharpie paint pens
Heidi Swapp chipboard letters
Jolee’s stickers
Glue Dots®
Prepare wood frame and paint. Allow it to dry completely and add Distress ink as desired with a foam applicator.  Let ink dry and draw a simple cross pattern lightly with a pencil. Paint pencil lines with silver Sharpie paint pen. Add mini Glue Dots® where lines intersect. (It is easiest to do this in sections; make sure to maintain the shape of the Glue Dots® as you apply them directly to the frame and gently press flat.) Add embossing powder to dots and use a stiff paintbrush to remove the excess powder. Heat carefully with a heat tool. It is normal for the adhesive to bubble and slightly reshape. Once the frame is covered, add chipboard letters as desired using mini Glue Dots®.  Embellish using snowflake stickers.

Boo 2 U

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I’m happy to post this second Halloween-themed project as a Glue Dots Dottess.  Although I didn’t know exactly what I would be making at first, I liked the idea of creating something that could celebrate Halloween or . . . not.  There are a lot of people with birthdays during this time of year, of course, and others who just like to welcome the holiday season.  Although I’ve never been a super-duper fan of Halloween (gasp!), I love to think of how it kind of signals the start of all the shopping madness, the cool, brisk, weather, and all of the things that scrapbookers love to take pictures of and make memories with in their albums. 

This card didn’t take me long and I was going for a “Frankenstein’s monster” kind of feel with the eyelets and floss.  The one bonus was that I finally got a little mileage out of my WRMK Big Bite.  It was extremely useful in creating this card and I would have definitely struggled a bit had I not had it. The other thing that is interesting to note is that I altered the eyelet color from brown to black to better match the color scheme of the card.

How did I do that? It’s quite simple actually.  The key is to have the right tools and some quality eyelets.  Mine are from American Crafts.  While I suppose you could use some permanent markers to do the job, I did it with black embossing powder and a heating tool.  If you want to try this, you must use good set of tweezers because you can’t use your hands.  It only takes a second to melt and once the powder does, be sure to give it about 30 seconds to cool before you place it down.  If you don’t you risk marring the cover-up job.  For other supplies and instructions, keep reading:

Die Cuts With a View (DCWV) textured cardstock
Basic Grey’s Eerie collection paper
Making Memories floss, metallic chipboard letters, Halloween foam stamps
American Crafts eyelets
Distress ink (Black Soot, Peeled Paint)
Versamark
Ranger embossing powder (black)
Glue Dots®
Distressing tool 
 
Cut DCWV cardstock to desired size. (Card pictured is 5 inches by 6 inches.) Cut strips of printed paper into one inch sections and match them to the width of the card. Distress edges with tool and add black Distress ink directly to the edge of the paper.  Stamp a sentiment in Versamark on colored cardstock and emboss with black embossing powder.  Cut by hand and set aside.  Emboss metallic chipboard letters and/or ink if desired and set aside.  Attach paper strips to card with Glue Dots®.  Mark large and small cross-stich “X’s” of varying heights with a pencil. Punch corresponding holes.  Attach eyelets to larger holes.  Stitch floss through the holes and tie tightly on the back side of card.  Shadow edges of card with distress ink if desired.  Add sentiment and other additional embellishments with mini Glue Dots®.

Summer Lovin’…

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This post is all about getting summer summed up in one quick layout.  If you keep it simple just by using a few embellishments and some coordinating papers, you can get this one done in less than 30 minutes!  The best part for me is that I was able to finish this one completely with scrap paper and left over stickers and rub ons. 

The best part for you?  Click that “4 panels layout” link on the BOX panel right over there (—->) and you’ll be able to grab a PDF sketch of this layout.  I really love using the color-blocking technique because it never fails to help me be versatile.  In this case I was able to alter one of the panels by using a border punch.  It offers some easy texture.  As I’ve reflected before, changing elements of any sketch is super fun to do.  Color-blocking is not only fun but it is pretty fail proof.  More importantly, it saves me time and it saves me money.  And who doesn’t like that? :)

A Stampin’ Up! Stamp Solution

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I’m always looking for ways to better organize myself in my craft space.  I think that you have to depending upon how much stuff you have and your personal system for finding what you need when you need it.  While I’ve seen some really great products and great systems alike, the key to any great system is that it works for you.  My way of organizing may not be your way of organizing, and so on and so forth.  So finding what works for you should definitely be intuitive, but it is always nice if can be inexpensive as well.

There are many stores that are dedicated to nothing but helping you better organize your life in general and your craft space in specific.  Once you’ve got your buckets, baskets and bins, you’ve got to invest some time into actually purging, categorizing and organizing.  I did something this weekend that allowed me do just that–I created my own stamp inventory for all of my Stampin’ Up! stamps.

This isn’t revolutionary by any means, but it works for me and just maybe, it may work for you. For the record, I’ve seen several people (especially on YouTube) share their way of organizing their stamps.  And while this isn’t anything new, I think that my take on it may ultimately help you.

A few adaptations to note:

  • While I have other stamps, I decided to concentrate on my Stampin’ Up! stamps because I already kept them separate (being a former demonstrator) and they come in sets in their own individual plastic cases
  • This method could work for ANY stamps, including cling and acrylic
  • This method could also work for any number of supplies like die cuts (ex. Sizzix), embossing folders, and punches (As a matter of fact, if I ever get the time to do this, I will inventory my entire room this way!)

The good news is that once you spend time getting this task done, it’s easy to maintain and to grow as your collection grows.  You can easily see what you already have (so that you don’t buy the same or similar items).  And when you’re ready to purge, you already know what you have on hand.  Ready? 

STEP ONE:  Gather your supplies. 

In this case I have my stamps, my old Stampin’ Up! catalogs, and some leftover garage sale stickers.  You don’t need garage sale stickers though.  You just need several copies of the same sticker. 

 

STEP TWO:  Set up your inventory system.

My system is very simple:  I use a 3 hole binder which I’ve already organized into several sections. (Since these are Stampin’ Up! stamps, I used their categories for my section labels:  “All Natural,” “Greetings,” “Elements,” etc.)  Since fewer stamps have seemingly been retired recently (this is just my observational opinion), I simply pulled out the page that featured my particular stamp set from past years’ catalogs and hole punched them right into my binder.

If you don’t have any old catalogs or if you’d rather not pull out pages from them, then you can copy the page and use that.  Or, if you are like me and have several sets that have yet to be mounted, you can scan/copy the page of labels or case cover (for the newer cling stamps) and use those.  Of course, making a scan or a copy of the actual stamp works too. 

By the way, other than organizing them into these sections, there was no rhyme or reason to my madness.  As you grow your collection, you could organize the pages by year or in alphabetical order.  You decide.

 

STEP THREE: Organize your stamps–your way.

In my case, I already had all of these shoebox-sized plastic bins.  You may not have bins at all because you just stack your stamps on shelves.  If that is the case, you can skip this step. (Or just assign a different color/style for every stamp set you have.)  But keeping them in small bins just makes it easy for me to get my hands on the ones I want when I want them.  However, I had no big decision to make as to which stamp sets went into which bins; I simply fit in as many as I could.  As a matter of fact, one of my shelves is full of some larger stamp sets that wouldn’t fit in a bin.

STEP FOUR:  Assign your stickers.

This is where you start to color-code your collection.  Since I had enough 50-cent stickers leftover for the six stamp sets in the bin, plus two more for the top and the side of the bin and at least one more for my inventory sheet, that’s what I used.  If you happen to have nine pink umbrella stickers, then use those.  It really doesn’t matter because it is not about the sticker, it is about the coding. 

STEP FIVE: Match up your assigned sticker to the location of the stamp set in your personal catalog.

This stamp set is located in my “Greetings” section and I’ve again used my 50-cent sticker on the image of the stamp set.  So while I can always just go into my containers and peruse my stamp collection, it will be much easier to go through my inventory, figure out which “Greetings” set I want to use and then grab the corresponding bin.

Stampin’ success!

PS If you wanted to completely forego using the inventory system altogether, you could just assign a color/style sticker to a section of stamp sets:  “Greetings” could be blue, “Elements” could be purple elephants, etc.  For those of you with extensive collections (congrats, by the way), this could be a simpler way of staying organized.